My Thoughts On Proper Basicality

Proper Basicality is a position some Christian Apologists
take with regards to epistemological warrant for believing the truth of
Christianity. The argument is an argument that you don’t need arguments to be
justified in believing the truth of Christianity unless you have some powerful
defeating reason to convince you otherwise. People like William Lane Craig and
Alvin Plantinga makes this argument. But it is legitimate?

1: Does The Denial Of This
Position Reduce Many Christians To Irrationality?

First, let me say that I can see why people would want to
propound this view. To say that you need to have know of the good arguments for
God’s existence in order to be justified in believing in Him would reduce a
large number of Christians to a position of irrationality. Many people either
don’t have the time to research the powerful evidence out there for God’s
existence. This seems to make evidentialism a position of intellectual elitism.
It seems to only make those have studied the evidence for the resurrection,
natural theology arguments etc. the only rational Christians there are. So it
seems right to argue that you don’t necessarily need to have any of these in
order to be justified in believing The Bible.

The evidence for creation and design is evident even on the
intuitive level. While doing science does make natural revelation 1,000 times
stronger, you have access to God’s natural revelation even if you didn’t have
access to the scientific evidence. After all, Paul wrote Romans 1 back in the
first century when they didn’t know hardly any of the design evidence we know
of now. They could only see God’s handiwork in nature on the intuitive level.
Thanks to science, we’ve been able to take what was evident on an intuitive
level and really unpack it scientifically and philosophically.

Here’s an analogy. Anyone who looks at a car can tell based
on it’s features that’s it’s been designed by an intelligent being. You can
come to this conclusion just by observing the outside. You see the wheels
attached to the exterior, you can see the dashboard (from looking through one
of the windows) and all of it’s buttons and dials, the seats etc. From these
things, you conclude somebody made the car. When you open up the hood and see
all of the dozens and dozens of complex parts interconnected with one another
to form working engine, you’re more than sure now. Natural Revelation is the
same way.

Most Christians who haven't studied apologetics, when you ask them why
they believe in God, if they don't answer "I just have faith", they'll
answer "Look around you, and in you! Look at the orderliness of nature!
Look at how complex the human body is! Do you expect me to believe all
this came about by chance?"

Given this, I don’t think any Christian is unreasonable for
believing in God “in the absence of evidence”. In fact, they don’t believe in
the absence of evidence. The created order declares His glory. By the way, this
is one reason why I often wonder if anyone truly has blind faith. Although
one problem that could rightfully be pointed out is that the record of nature
only gets you to theism in general, not necessarily to Christian theism.

2: It’s Not A Good
Apologetic.

Regardless of whether or not belief in God is properly
basic, proper basicality doesn't make for a good apologetic. I like William
Lane Craig's differentiation of knowing VS. showing. He says that while you can
know God exist without arguments, you can't show people God exists by appealing
to your properly basic belief. Who is seriously going to be persuaded by the
response "The internal witness of The Holy Spirit" in response to the
question "What reason is there to think God exists?" That would
rightly be as unconvincing as a Mormon saying we should believe Mormonism is
true because he had a “burning in the bosom”.

I recently read a chapter in Paul Copan’s book “When God
Goes To Starbucks” and he made this same distinction. Copan
and Craig would both argue that while proper basic belief in God is perfectly
valid and legitimate, appealing to such subjective experience isn’t very
persuasive when talking to another person.

When someone says “You ask me how I know he lives? He
lives in my heart” I think the response you would expect is “You’re
placing your confidence of the truth of your worldview on feelings?”

3: Proper Basicality Is Not For Me

I for one am rather
skeptical of the internal witness myself. How do I know this is The Holy Spirit
speaking to me rather than just a gut feeling a have (is this just a hunch that
Christianity might be true or is God really speaking to me)? Moreover, I’d have
a hard time comparing my internal witness up against a Mormon’s “burning
bosom”. Whom is The Holy Spirit really talking to? He can’t be telling me that
Christianity is true and be telling the Mormon that Mormonism is
true…because these beliefs have contradictory truth claims. How do I know The
Holy Spirit isn’t speaking to Him and it’s something else that’s gnawing at me
(some other spirit, or just self delusion)? Apart from any external, objective
evidence I’d have a hard time making the differentiation.

But my personal incredulity of the witness of the Spirit
shouldn’t mean that others are unjustified in their Christian belief in the
absence of arguments. If there really is a Holy Spirit (as the collective
evidence demonstrates) then obviously a person wouldn’t be irrational for
listening to Him. But that’s the whole question for me. How do I know this is
The Holy Spirit instead A) some other spirit, B) self delusion, or C) Just a
hunch I feel. I need an argument to reinforce my confidence in the truth of
God’s existence or the resurrection (Showing *myself* that Christianity
is true). I’m just too much of a skeptic to rely on such subjective experience.
I want hard facts. I want evidence, I want arguments.For me, the internal witness of The Holy Spirit works as corroborative evidence, not stand alone evidence. I prefer the objective route.